THE NEW YOR.KER. tion Exposition was "A Celebra- tion of the Modified Freebie." Aladdin Remodelers, of Mas- sapequa Park, was giving away a free kitchen worth $11,750- cabinetry, sink and faucet, dish- washer, island-but not delivery costs, setup charges, or taxes. Cayman Airways and Holiday Inn were giving away a week- long trip for two in the sun, but no meals. The Ultimate Class Limousine people were pushing stork service ("Take your most valuable possession home in style," $25 off) but had nothing to offer in the way of a child- rearing stipend. The best Trop- icana could manage was a buy- five-get-one-free deal on juice plus a very long shot at winning a May tag refrigerator. North Shore University Hospital was willing to measure your glucose and cholesterol-after you forked over (a) $5 and (b) some blood. In this context, Edward Regan, the State Comptroller, radiated unal- loyed beneficence. Comptroller Regan himself was actually away for the week- end (maybe taking a nap, maybe doing some stuff that's none of our business ), but several of his staff members- Nicky Pion, Mike Kopkin, Rhona Lat- tanzi, Gerry Giammatteo, John Sever- ance, Bob Austin; i.e., the Office of Unclaimed Funds crowd-were at the Coliseum trying to give away money. Because there are over a half-million people in New York State who have not bothered to cash dividend checks, or have left jobs without picking up their final paychecks, or have given the phone company deposits and then dis- appeared, or have opened bank ac- counts and forgotten about them, the law has arranged for Comptroller Regan to wind up perched on a pile of dough that, strictly speaking, doesn't belong to him. (If everybody came run- ning at once, he'd have to fork over $1,700,000,000.) Five days a week he operates an Unclaimed Funds hotline ( 1-800-221-9311), and once a month he or his cronies show up in a shopping mall or a nursing home or at a Waldbaum's Annual Food and Nutrition Exposition-like event and tries to whittle away at the billion- seven. The Office of Unclaimed Funds booth was equipped with a table, three small file boxes filled with mi- ... L ""''-' - ..... . . /10 ... 4 i .. -"-- t"" :.. _ ( \ " , l .. "'liil'.' 1. -.... ;,-jt' ; \;'n w-. ... -4.. t . _4 .- .....--. If' AI. _ ., .. .....: .. ...... ;;y . " . t . .. w; - "'- . ' , ' " "...., 0,0 0 . O, , o, '0 0 ., 1,ijl ," 'ï' f .9 G "' ---- ---- . ) 39 'f-" ' r--" IIi ---- BOOTH "Don't give the dog any more coffee." . crofiches, a pair of laptop microfiche scanners, and a pile of pamphlets ex- plaining the Comptroller's sincere in- tentions. How it could be that, two aisles away, hundreds of people were patiently standing three abreast in a line slowly funnelling toward a big sign that said "MEAT," while at the Office of Unclaimed Funds booth there was never more than a trickle of activ- ity, was eXplained to us by Bob Austin. "Everybody's so skeptical," he said. "They're not accustomed to the state giving money away." All you had to do was write your name on a sheet of paper, and an Unclaimed Funds person would gladly pullout a microfiche and discover whether there was any good news to report. A man wearing a green plaid shirt, a gray windbreaker, and a gray poplin slouch hat paused in front of the table. "W ould you like us to look up your name and see if N ew York State is holding any of your money?" Bob Aus- tin asked him. "I'm too hard of hearing," the man said, and walked on. Diane and Ted gave it a shot. (Diane and Ted have a last name, but it's a family secret.) While Bob Austin read the scanner, Diane leaned across the table with the apprehensive look of someone who had just graduated from . the quarter slots to dollar blackj ack. When the name of her late father-in- law showed up on the screen, her eyes widened with surprise. "See, my father-in-Iaw's dead since 1970," she said. "After he died, his second wife went back to Italy, and we heard she died there. We know he owned a few stocks, but we don't know what she knew, and she didn't know what she knew, either. So she died." The microfiches don't reveal dollar amounts; you have to fill out a form and wait a few weeks for the payoff. Fred (like Diane and Ted, a close-to- the-vest guy) turned up in the files twice, which should have made him smile. Because he had already been waiting six months for Albany to send him the title to his new car, however, he was able to modulate his joy. Nicky Pion's job, back in the home office, is to start processing Diane and Ted and Fred's claims. At one time, she answered hot-line calls in Spanish. "I work in New York now, but I used to work and live in Albany," she said. "A couple of years ago, one of our secre- taries found my name in the computer. She said, 'Nicky, that can't be you, can it?' I said, 'It sure is.' See, my insur- ance company sent thirteen dollars to myoId address. One of these days, I'll process my own claim. So far, though, I just haven't had the time to collect."